Attrill20 Thanks I'm enjoying the games too, but let's see who wins when the dust settles ๐Ÿ™‚ I really do prefer to play without the "metagame tactics" described above, but I wanted to know if I could expect them to be used against me and for them to be allowed within the tournament rules. If that had been the case then employing them would probably have been almost necessary in order to win consistently. But as a result many individual games would run the risk of degenerating into non-games. I much prefer it this way.

      5 days later

      I'll throw my weight behind what SpartacusImperator said, as well. I'd also prefer to play a tournament without the "metagame tactics" part being such a large factor. Watching opponents purposefully defend against wars "less," seed Impacts that don't benefit them at all, and even playing Armed Intervention while the Olympic Games are up, just to hurt the perceived "leader" of your specific league rather bother me, since it's outside the bounds of what a "reasonable" move would be, in a normal game of TtA.

      What's worse, is that it makes the games take so much longer! It's strategically to my advantage to take as much time as possible on my turns, so that I have a better understanding of everyone's league ranks before making my decisions. I've had to "wait out" my opponents before in order to know what Impacts to seed, for instance. It also puts a lot more weight on the Military part of the game, pushing you towards more interactive Military plays since it may be more important to deny a specific opponent 1st place (even if it gets you 3rd) than to secure your own 2nd place spot in a game.

      I understand that it's not possible, right now, but I'd prefer an option for the tournaments where overall standings are invisible until all of the league's games are concluded. Sadly, it will take away from some of the "unfolding drama" of a tournament season, but I feel it would also create for a less metagamey and a more focused series of game.

      Just my opinion.

        I think the meta-gaming is basically unavoidable in a promotion-relegation tournament with multiple games per league. In Intermezzo the effect is especially strong since 60% of each league will be promoted or relegated. Almost nobody ignores the league standings while playing out the last few games.

        Other tournament types are better suited if meta-gaming is to be limited. One example is a ladder system, which is basically a promotion-relegation tournament with just one game per league. I believe there are already (smaller) ladder tournaments organized here. Another example is a Swiss system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament), which would suit large tournaments like Intermezzo and International quite well. Both ladder and Swiss would require that all games in a round finish before the pairings of the next round can be made though. Good for 2p and short time limits, but with the time control as in Intermezzo/International the tournaments would take forever. (On the other hand, you could start new seasons before old ones finish).

        WanderingWolf

        Not defending to save your defense cards is a viable reason to allow an aggression to pass, I would put it on the same level as not building the stage of the red cross.

          pajada is it possible for me to skip a division in international I went undefeated in wood league last season

              Dunedain I agree with this, I've occasionally eaten an aggression to save defense cards for what presumably would be a worse aggression (or worse for me in-game) from another player.

                  The only thing I find unquestionably unfair is degrading your military situation without any benefit. The good news is that it is easy to assess too.
                  All other situations can find a proper justification, even if some may be borderline.

                    Probably the most elegant solution would be to just hide results (or at least player names) until everything is finished like someone proposed somewhere. It's kind of nice knowing what's going on from a drama arc point of view, though.

                    Additionally, hiding player names during every game could be interesting, even when there was no metagaming involved. Could call it the "blind championship".

                      10 days later

                      Hi, I ran into a bug with the most recent season of this league. My second set of games never showed up. I was logging in to look for them this morning and decided to come here since they still weren't. My results show 3 3rd places for games which I never saw. I don't know if I appeared to the other players as having joined the games and then just timed out on my first turn or what. Not sure how common of an issue this is, but any ideas about how to deal with it in the future?

                        MugiwaraNoLofwyr the best not to rely on notifications and write down start date of both batches to your calendar. Or did you check the app but the games were not there? Reserve is 2 days so theoretically 2 and half of day is enough to run out of time in all games.

                            pajada the games never appeared in my app. I have a consistent game going with some rl friends, so I play a little every day and never saw them. Looking at the games tabs I see that I did indeed time out of all three

                                @pajada Hi, it looks like my time is over in Intermezzo ๐Ÿ™‚ I decide to quite. First, Thank you for running this. And it is happy to see more and more new strong players. I also play other games now. Sometimes I feel I can not focus on playing TTA as before, a little tired. Maybe less tournaments is better to me. Then GOODBYE Intermezzo, good luck to every warriors๏ผ

                                @:

                                silent_x111 sorry to see you go, but good luck! Also curious, what other games do you play often? (that you like as much as TtA or even more?)

                                  silent_x111 You are a legend, silent_x111! Six seasons in Grandmaster in both Intermezzo and International. One and half a year playing on the highest level. Good luck in other games you are playing (I'm also curious what they are).

                                    pajada maybe do an "exit interview" with @silent_x111? that would be interesting. He's still playing in International though, so exiting only Intermezzo.

                                      Goldan Yes, I also understood his posts that he is staying in International.
                                      I'm already two interviews behind, next in the line are Genghisip (winning International Season 13) and DireNTropy (winning Intermezzo Season 10).

                                        Goldan Thank you for your attention! TTA is my 1st favourite forever. The 2nd is Terra Mystica. The 3rd is Gaia Project.